Summary of “Yesterday” by Haruki Murakami

In the bathtub
That’s where all the good ideas came to him
He would come home
Drop everything he was doing
And just take a bath soaking for hours

He had a bold denial of anything constructive
but everything he did had a kind of hidden import in it

He failed his entrance exam, twice
Cause he was studying a different dialect, to perfection

He wanted to become a completely different personality

He thought about how he’d been living
How he had been approaching life
He found it trite, pointless, middle class un-imaginative rubbish

He wanted to light it up on fire
And watch it go up in smoke
And start a new life again
In a new way
In a new city as a new person

He was dating a great girl
One he had known his whole life
But the relationship wasn’t going anywhere
She was pretty, honest and smart

He asks his friend to go out with her
Why? Because his friend is a good guy and better him than someone he doesn’t know
This way he can get updates

He thinks of the girl and feels left behind
They could of had a life with no problems, graduated, got married and lived happily

He does not want his life that easy and comfortable

He was was a child prodigy
But his personality just isn’t suited to the daily grind of studying
He’d rather go off and do crazy things on his own.
Unlike his girlfriend, not as bright but could always buckle down and get the job done

He has an extreme way
He went through the trouble of learning a different dialect and speaking it all the time
To be someone different from who he has been up until now
He wants a different personality and had a radical way of dealing with it

He is seeking something
In his own way
At his own pace

One day he randomly disappears
later his girlfriend and friend find that he has gone to a different city and is a chef

The girlfriend remembers thinking they cannot continue the voyage together
His friend remembers thinking that he should do what he wants and forget what other people think